


Quiet Comfort

by toxicbalance



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: (i'm so happy that's a tag), Asexual Relationship, Genderqueer Character, Hair Dye, Nightmares, Other, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Romance, Self Harm, even though it isn't explicitly mentioned, i wrote this with the headcannon that they are both asexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 09:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxicbalance/pseuds/toxicbalance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They stumble free of the foot clamps and into each other, the last threads of the drift pulling them together. He holds zir close as technicians flood into Gipsy around them. They can hear Tendo and the Marshall talking but it fades into white noise surrounding them and the lines until all that’s left is them, melting into each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Comfort

They stumble free of the foot clamps and into each other, the last threads of the drift pulling them together. He holds zir close as technicians flood into Gipsy around them. They can hear Tendo and the Marshall talking but it fades into white noise surrounding them and the lines until all that’s left is them, melting into each other.

**

Medical doesn’t try to separate them. They come to tangled together in an echo of their drift. Ze sits up first, letting Raleigh’s head fall heavy onto zir thigh, and glances down with a small smile. zir's head snaps up when ze hears a small cough.

“I’m sorry to interrupt Mako but I need your report now.” Tendo looks apologetic.

“It’s alright. I assume you want a report from the time the dome shut down.” ze says quietly, hand resting softly in Raleigh’s hair.

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

**

Raleigh wakes up slowly to the soft motions of Mako’s hand in his hair. He smiles into Mako’s hip, knowing that Mako knows he’s awake. He wants to move, knowing that if he doesn’t he’ll need Mako’s help to work the stiffness out of his left hand, but he doesn’t want to give a report yet. Mako scratches deeper when he doesn’t move and he grins, imagining zir face and knowing that zir expression hasn’t changed.

**  
After Tendo leaves he rolls over, looking up at zir expectant face. He doesn’t say sorry for not getting up earlier and ze doesn’t say it’s alright. They don’t need words to talk.

**

He knocks on Mako’s door, needing someone to talk to when the memories get to be too much. Ze opens the door before his hand can pull away. He bows and ze bows back, welcoming him in. He moves forward to hold zir, resting his head on Mako’s shoulder. Ze wraps zir arms around him, holding him close. Mako backs them up slowly, letting them fall together onto zir bed.

He burrows closer to zir and breathes, letting the memories flow over and around him. He shakes and Mako strokes through his hair and down his back, following the pattern and motions of his mother.

Sometimes he wonders if sharing a brain is a bad idea but it’s times like these that make him grateful for it.

**

Raleigh always feels the constant hum of his copilot in the back of his brain. At first it was annoying but now, when the hum becomes a scream, he can’t do anything but blindly follow the sound. He stumbles through the shatterdome, finding Mako in the shadows in zir bathroom. He drops to his knees without thinking, cradling Mako’s upper body like he did after their first drift. His hand slips on the blood covering zir wrist.

“Mako! Mako please!” He reaches to call for medical but he can’t reach without letting Mako go. He holds Mako closer, letting tears cascade down his face and into Mako’s hair. “You can’t leave me here alone Mako, I need you.” He barely notices the medics pulling Mako from his arms or Herc and Aleksis holding him back.

**

He’s there when Mako wakes up, meets his eyes and bursts into tears. He falls forward at the same time that Mako sits up, meeting in a hug. He doesn’t know what he’s saying into Mako’s neck.

“I’m sorry I almost left you alone.” Mako keeps repeating through zir tears.

The bandages on zir wrists scratch against his back.

**

Raleigh is eating in the mess hall with the Wei triplets and moves over to the edge of the bench because he can feel this is one of the days when Mako doesn’t want to be touched, doesn’t want to feel unbroken skin against zir broken body. Ze sits down quietly and pulls zir elbows in, shrinking into zirself. He doesn’t stop the conversation because he knows ze doesn’t want to disturb anything. So he doesn’t change the conversation, he just monitors the hum extra carefully. Mako doesn’t say much while eating but he can feel the small amounts of contentment under the discomfort of being in zir skin.

He’s almost done eating when he feels zir hand slip into his and pull it down into zir lap while he’s talking. Mako’s thumb brushes slowly across his knuckles for the rest of the meal.

**

He knocks on Mako’s door and for the first time since they drifted, ze calls to wait a second. Raleigh waits curiously for Mako to open the door, ze does with a light blush coloring zir cheeks. There’s a towel draped around zir shoulders, blue drops spattered against the thin cloth.

“Let the boy in, Mako, don’t just stand there at the door for the world to see.” Sasha calls out from behind Mako. Raleigh bows and Mako stands aside to let him in. Sasha is sitting on the floor, a bottle of Kaiju blue hair dye and several bottles of nail polish on the floor in front of her. Raleigh waits for Mako to sit down before folding his knees to sit just close enough so their arms brush when ze moves to bend zir head so Sasha can get the back. He spends the rest of evening sitting at his co-pilot’s side, letting the soft sounds of nail polish and hair dye wash through his brain.

When Mako’s hair is done, Sasha stands and grabs the hair bleach. “You would look good with blue on the sides. Something to make you match.” She says right before she leaves the room. 

Raleigh looks at Mako and inclines his head to zir, the invitation written in his eyes. Ze smiles. 

The next time Sasha sees them, she laughs and gives them a thumbs up.

**

Mako feels the panic setting in and bolts up, shocked into waking. Zir cheeks are wet with tears when ze reaches up to brush away the echo of tears. It wasn’t zir nightmare that woke zir. There’s a dull ache echoing through zir left arm. Mako feels the covers too close against zir skin and ze bolts across the hall to Raleigh’s door and pushes it open easily, he rarely remembers to lock it.

He’s thrashing, his covers twisted around his legs and Mako can feel his fear.

Ze doesn’t think before moving to pull him from the too tight cocoon his blankets made around him. Raleigh wakes with a gasp.

“Yancy?” He whispers and Mako wants to cry. Raleigh tenses in Mako’s arms before going loose in the arms of his co-pilot. “I’m sorry I just” Raleigh doesn’t finish his sentence and just buries his head in his shoulder.

Mako doesn’t say anything, ze doesn’t have any words to make his pain go away.

**

It’s a quiet day in the shatterdome. Raleigh sprawls across Mako’s lap, a worn paperback in his hands. Mako is curled up in one of Raleigh’s overlarge sweaters, stolen from his pile of dirty clothes left when he went to wash his nightmare sweat soaked face.

Mako combs zir fingers through his damp hair, making him purr and smile up at zir. Ze smiles back and tangles their free hands together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm 30mychemnarglesfalloutatthedisco on tumblr, come say hi! :)


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